


Impossibilities

by nowriterwrong



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 17:42:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5793850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nowriterwrong/pseuds/nowriterwrong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How did you cope when your life changed so fundamentally in such a short space of time?</p>
<p>Twenty minutes is all it takes. It's been twenty-two years since they last saw each other, and, when Percy Jackson walks into the same elevator as Annabeth Chase, now they must come face to face with fate, and the future that, due to misunderstandings, poor timing, and an over protective mother, never got lived.</p>
<p>They lost the past that could have been everything. But maybe they found the future that was worth waiting for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Of all the elevators, in all the office blocks, in all of New York, the biggest mistake of her life had to walk into this one._

Annabeth Chase sent up a silent prayer for invisibility as she inched behind two suited executives. Her back bumped against the mirrored wall of the elevator at her companies new twenty-eight story office block in uptown New York. Unfortunately, someone up there wasn’t listening, because she failed to disappear.

_Percy Jackson._

The name whispered across her consciousness as heat crawled up her neck and flared across her scalp.

Twenty-two years since she’d last seen him and yet recognition blasted her in the sternum as soon as he’d edged into the crowded elevator. Which was surprising, because that fitted steel-grey designer suit was one heck of a departure from the wrecked jeans and third-hand leather jacket he’d practically lived in at Goode High.

Thank God he was absorbed in the elevator monitor and hadn’t looked her way. One glance at those heavy-lidded, sea green eyes a moment ago had been more than enough to make her heart swell up and stop beating for several crucial seconds.

Funny how even after two decades, and what appeared to be a major _GQ_ makeover, those slightly slanted green eyes still made him look as if he’d just got out of bed — or was about to lure her back into one.

The elevator glided to a halt on the mezzanine level. Her two-executive shield, as well as most of the elevators inhabitants, shot out, making a beeline for the coffee machine. Her shoulders tightened and she stared straight ahead, tuning out the mindless chatter from the three young women who’d deliberately positioned themselves beside Percy.

She risked another glance. He seemed taller and more muscular. She didn’t remember his physique being quite this over-powering. But from what she could see from this angle, little else about him was different. He still had his dramatically high cheekbones. And although now his thick dark hair was expensively styled and with a wisp of grey at the temples, it still had those soft curls that skimmed his collar and made her fingers itch to caress them. And even in his expertly tailored suit, he had maintained that laid-back-to-the-point-of-insolence stance that said quite clearly that he didn’t care all that much about anyone or anything.

Oddly enough, it had been that stance rather than his spectacular looks that had lured her to him back then, giving him the dangerous attraction of forbidden treasure.

She let out a shaky breath. Percy Jackson _had_ given her treasure, however unintentionally. That was one thing at least she hadn’t been wrong about. The sucker punch had been her idiotic belief that a tender, tortured soul existed beneath Percy’s bad boy exterior.

The elevator bell pinged, zapping Annabeth back to the present as the trio of PR women exited on the eighth floor. All three checked Percy out as they passed.

Annabeth’s stomach tightened as he sent them an impersonal smile and hooked his hand into the pocket of his trousers . One of them blushed prettily in response.

Annabeth scowled. _Watch out, girls. Wolf in Gucci clothing here._

The man might look dreamy but she knew he was every woman’s worst nightmare. Her gaze dipped to the bottom edge of his jacket, which rode up slightly, revealing the same tight orbs she had once spent entire lunch hours admiring while they were framed in battered denim.

Resentment flared. Was there no justice? While her boobs now required a bra underwired with tungsten to stop them heading south, and her face took at least thirty minutes to apply each morning, maturity had only enhanced Percy’s megawatt sex appeal. Surely for a man as shallow and self-absorbed as he was, there had to be some kind of deal with the devil involved for him to still be this gorgeous?

She shifted further into the corner, as the elevator stopped on the eleventh floor and let out a new, freckle-faced intern — the last person left sharing the elevator with them.  
She counted to five but no one else entered before the doors slid closed, sealing them, alone together, into the metal box.

_Crap._

The elevator rose, and the weightlessness in her stomach was suddenly accompanied by an odd flare of heat, relaxing the muscles of her abdomen. The heat spread up her chest and reignited her scalp.

_Terrific, thirty-eight years old and my body chooses this precise moment to have its first hot flush._

She slung the strap of her laptop bag over her shoulder, crossed her arms over her boiling chest and studiously ignored the man in front of her — who, thankfully, had yet to look her way.

Only five more floors to go until she could make a dignified exit at her floor and reassign the biggest mistake of her life to his rightful place in her past.  
The overhead light flickered and a sudden jolt had them both gripping the railing. Percy straightened first. The elevator stuttered to a halt, the panel light fluttering ominously between twelve and fourteen — there was no thirteenth floor, even though they appeared to have stopped there.

“You okay?” His gaze wandered over her as if checking for injuries. And her heart beat in her throat, the harsh fluorescent lighting picking up the flecks of gold in his irises, which Theo had also inherited.

“Fine.” Her stomach muscles tangled into knots as her knuckles tightened on the rail. She tried to recall the breathing technique she’d learned at the ante-natal classes before Theo was born. As her son was now twenty-one, and she’d ended up having every drug known to man by the time he was actually delivered, it was a fairly vain hope.

_Relax. Don’t panic, maybe he won’t recognise you._

After all, she’d changed completely since that long ago afternoon in the clinic waiting room, the last time she’d seen him. She had cheekbones these days. Her hair, once curly and falling freely down her back, was now much straighter and pulled back into a loose, more refined, bun. Her trademark vibrantly coloured eye make-up and bubblegum lipstick had been replaced with subtle autumn hues, which enhanced her skin-tone and gave her a more sophisticated, businesslike appearance.

A shudder ran down her spine at the memory of how much effort she’d put into standing out at the age of sixteen. No wonder Percy — the unnaturally beautiful lost boy whom every girl in their class had flirted with mercilessly — had only asked her out by the request of Jason, his old best friend.

His gaze returned to the elevator panel, and her breath eased out passed gritted teeth. But the gush of relief was tempered with a tiny flicker of regret, which she ruthlessly squashed.

_Don’t be stupid. It’s good that he doesn’t recognise you. It shows how far you’ve come from that sartorial disaster zone._

A loud metallic clanking sound filled the elevator, which inched upwards and then stopped again with a juddering bump.

“What the hell was that?” Percy murmured.

“Teething problems, apparently. They’ve had a few in the last couple of weeks.” Annabeth squeezed the words out past the ticking time bomb lodged in her throat. “It’ll move again in a moment.” _Or I shall strangle every single member of the maintenance team with my bare hands._

He stabbed the emergency call button and shouted into the intercom: “Hey, anyone out there? We’re kinda stuck in here.”

A crackling sound came on over the line, followed by a disembodied and remarkably relaxed voice: “Sorry, folks, give as a couple of minutes and we’ll have you rolling again.”

“Thanks,” Percy replied, as he took his finger off the button. Propping himself against the wall, he dropped his briefcase and raked his fingers through his hair.

Annabeth stared at the panel above his head. Anywhere but at those disturbingly familiar eyes. She sent up a silent prayer, this one as fervent as the one she’d once made while standing by her newborn son’s crib in the hospital's neonatal care unit. Although, this time, instead of praying for Theo’s father to magically appear, now she prayed for him to disappear as quickly as was humanly possible.

“So, Annabeth, how are you?”

She raised her head, her blush spreading like a mushroom cloud. “You recognised me.”

The quirk of his lips sent two dimples rising to his cheeks. Her pulse rate accelerated. As a boy, he’d used that dimple on women like a lethal weapon. Age and maturity hadn’t dimmed its power.

“Like I could forget you,” he said, the tone sardonic. “You’re the only person I’ve ever kissed who also kneed me in the balls.”

A dart of shame pierced her consternation at the memory of him tumbling off the bed with his hands cupping his crotch, tears of pain squeezing out of his eyes.

“As I recall we did a lot more than kiss.” Her spine stiffened as she refused to remember exactly how much more, and instead concentrated on the furious argument they’d had before she’d sent him rolling onto the floor. Yes, she’d hurt him, but he’d deserved it at the time. “And I didn’t get _that_ much leverage. You made far too much of a fuss about it.”

“I remember very well how much more we did.” The low tone sounded oddly seductive. “And, when it comes to leverage, believe me,” he continued, shuddering theatrically, “you got enough.”

She saw the quirk of self-deprecating humour on those sensual lips and wanted to kick him in the groin all over again. Seriously? Wasn’t he going to mention _why_ she’d kicked him? Or was he just being coy?

His head tilted to one side as his gaze drifted up to her hairline. She resisted the urge to smooth back the loose pieces of hair framing her face, or to acknowledge her thundering heartbeat.

“It suits you.” He nodded. “The hairstyle. I can see more of your face.”

“Thanks,” she said caustically, not quite able to keep the bitterness at bay. Wasn’t he going to mention Theo at all? Or maybe even ask after him?

She’d thought the worst that could happen would be that he might recognise her. She had been wrong.

“You look good too,” she added. “Although it does make me wonder what state the painting in your attic must be in these days?”

Instead of looking offended by the barb, he laughed. “There’s no painting. Yet. But Dorian was definitely onto something. If I could swap a magic painting, however grotesque, for having to sweat like hell in the gym four times a week, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

A satisfied laugh escaped her lips at the gratifying thought that even he had to work hard to look good these says.

She glanced at her wristwatch. “You should ask them what’s going on. I have an important conference with a new client, and we’ve been stuck in here for five minutes now,” she added. She wanted to make it clear she wasn’t enjoying the trip down memory lane.

He hitched his shoulder, then buzzed the intercom again. After a brief talk with the maintenance team, an engineer came on the line. “I’m sorry, sir. We’re having to override the trip switch, there’s been a shortage in the…”

"Save me the tech Jargon, buddy.” Percy interrupted. “All we’re interested in is how much longer we’re likely to be in here?”

“Definitely not more than ten minutes,” the engineer replied. “Twenty tops.”

“What?” Annabeth yelped. No way was she going to be able to survive another twenty minutes of small talk without having the enormous elephant crammed into the elevator with them rear up onto its two hind legs and crush her to death. Or worse, tumble out of her mouth. And if that happened she’d never forgive herself.

She’d made a promise to herself on Theo’s first birthday that she wouldn’t contact Percy Jackson again — finally letting go of the immature hope that he’d never received the letters her mother had passed on. His ignorance and avoidance of her had spoken volumes from the start, but she refused to truly see it for over a year. A year of pointless tears and sleepless nights that should have been spent devoting herself to her son.

Once she’d let go of that delusion, everything had got easier. Slowly but surely, she’d gone from being a heart sick teenage drama queen expecting Percy to return and sweep away all of her problems, to being a single mother ready to face up to her responsibilities. Not to say that it had been easy because that had been one hell of a steep learning curve. But she had survived, and, eventually, prospered.

But she didn’t think she could stand here for another twenty minutes and have this man continue to pretend Theo didn’t exist without reverting to a bit of teenage drama and quite possibly murdering him.

Taking the three steps to Percy’s side, she elbowed him aside and stabbed the intercom button herself. “Listen, I don’t know if you know who I am, but I have a meeting. A very important meeting.” _Not to mention a man’s life in my hands_. “And if I’m late for it, I will personally have you fired.”

Recognising her voice, the young engineer coughed guiltily. “Of course. My apologise Miss Chase. Would you like me to tell them you’ll be late?”

“Are you a complete…?” She stopped, trying to drag her temper back from the brink as Percy’s dark brows launched up his forehead at her outburst. “No, don’t do that, just… hurry…” She struggled for calm but her whole body was starting to shake. He was standing so close, she could smell him. The far too familiar scent of clean oceans and wet sand — no longer marred by the aroma of tobacco smoke — brought back all sorts of heady memories. She’d thought the scent of his skin was incredibly sexy at sixteen. Unfortunately, that sexiness didn’t seem to have lessened. If anything, it was sexier now.

_Stop right there. You’re not attracted to him. You’re just a little stressed._

Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips as she turned away from the beautiful mouth that had once kissed her with such longing and now belonged to a near stranger.

_Make that a lot stressed._

“I just need to get out of here…” She finished, feeling hideously exposed.

“Are you okay, Miss Chase?” came the engineer’s concerned voice.

“Yes, of course.”

_Give or take the odd nervous breakdown._

But then Percy’s warm palm covered her fingers — she hadn’t realised that they’d begun to tremble on the intercom button.

“She’s fine,” he said into the intercom as his warm grip eased her fingers off the button to replace them with his own. “Just get us out of her as soon as you can.”

“Twenty minutes. I promise. Your Supreme Commander is on the case.”

Percy broke the connection and she yanked her hand out of his grasp, walking back across the elevator, her legs now as shaky as the rest of her.

Twenty minutes. She could keep it together for twenty minutes. Couldn’t she?

“I never knew you hated me that much,” he murmured.

She looked up to find him studying her, his hands braced on the rail and his expression heavy with regret. She shook her head. Now he wanted to talk about it? Was he trying to send her over the edge?

“I don’t hate you, Percy,” she said. Although, given the way her heart was battering the wall of her chest, she was forced to admit that she still had some kind of strong emotions where he was concerned. “I just don’t want to be stuck here.”

“With me,” he added.

So he’d finally got the message. Although she couldn’t quite believe how self-absorbed he was being. Did he honestly still believe this was all about him?

“Yes, with you. What did you expect Percy? I was sixteen and pregnant, and you abandoned me. Of the top ten people I would least like to be stuck in an elevator with, you’re right up there with Adolph Hitler and Octavian Sibyl from our senior class.”

He sent her a wry smile. “Adolph I get, but please tell me I at least rank below Octavian.”

She sent him a rueful smile back, totally devoid of humour. “I’m afraid I can’t. It’s a pretty close run thing.”

He let out a long sigh. “That bad, huh?”

“Yes, that bad.” She should probably resent the fact that he had managed to turn even this into a joke. But somehow it didn’t seem to matter anymore.

“You’re right,” he said, the serious tone surprising her. “There’s no excuse for what I did that day. It was unbelievably selfish and pretty damn unforgivable.” He pushed upright, slinging his hands into his pockets. “But I was sixteen too, and scared to death, and if it’s any consolation at all, I regretted it for months afterwards. And if I’d been able to, I would have come back and apologised.”

She laughed, the sound hollow. “ _You_ were scared.” She placed a hand on her breastbone, desperately trying to hold back the angry recriminations that she had never been able to voice. “ _You_ were scared. I was fucking terrified.” She laughed again before clamping her mouth shut. There were so many other things she could say. But she stopped herself.

In eighteen minutes, if the engineer kept his promise, they’d be out of here and this would all be nothing more than a bad dream.

“Jesus, Annabeth. I know you were terrified.” He threw up his hands with an exasperation she didn’t understand. What right did he have to be exasperated? “And I know you were doing the right thing. For both of us. And considering I’d been man enough to get you pregnant, I should have been man enough to support your decision and stand by you, instead of running away. But…” His shoulders slumped and he stared down at his feet, the dark hair falling across his face — she strained against the sudden urge to reach up and push his fringe back off his forehead, just as she always did with Theo. “But I kept thinking about the baby. Our baby. And what was going to happen to it. And I just couldn’t…”

She frowned, the boulder in her throat making it hard for her to decipher the words properly. They swirled around in her head like the lame excuses they were, but something about them didn’t quite fit. “What are you talking about?”

Those deep emerald eyes met hers as he swept the hair back from his forehead, his expression bleak. “All I’m trying to say is, I couldn’t bear to be there when you had the abortion.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Percy Jackson felt something shrink inside of him at the look of shocked disbelief on her beautiful face.

He shouldn’t have tried to explain. He should have known that would be her reaction. Stupid to expect her to give him the benefit of the doubt twenty-two years after the fact. Why should she? Why would she? No one else ever had when he was growing up. And anyway, what had he ever done to make amends in all the years since that day? How would she know that he had always regretted being such a gutless coward? He’d been unable to find her once she had left New York.

“It was a cowardly thing to do,” he continued, even though the justification sounded weak to him now too. “I should have been there with you, helped you through it, and I know I didn’t.” He sucked in a breath and hoped to hell she would at least believe this much. “And I would have visited you afterwards, I swear, if I’d been able to. But Gabe found out that I stole  the money for the ultrasound from him and beat the living hell out of me when I got home that night.” She still looked shocked rather than accusatory, so he soldiered on. “I didn’t want you to see me in that state. Not after what you’d already been through. But before the swelling went down, your mother had already shipped you off to San Francisco.” He buried his hands back in his pockets, glad at least to have finally got the explanation out. “I sent you letters… a lot of them. Your mother said she would pass them on.”

He’d spent months trying to track her down. He even had some stupid idea that she’d forgive him, even though he knew he didn’t deserve it. But he’d been forced to give up eventually. Because, every dead end – every missed lead – just felt like another kick to the groin. Telling him he was worthless, and stupid, and he had never deserved her in the first place.

She’d been smart and chatty and a total dork, who he’d taken out reluctantly, and ended up falling hopelessly in love with. And then he’d got her pregnant. But worse than that, the night she’d told him, he broke down. He became entirely unresponsive. He lashed out, and, in a moment of rage, laid all the blame and responsibility on her. Hence the infamous kick in the groin.

“Letters?” Her voice cracked on the words, confusing him. “What letters?”

“I sent letters. Loads of letters. I wrote to you nearly every day. I called too. She told me that she’d get you to call me back, but you never did.”

“My mother never gave me any messages,” she said quietly.

He swallowed, a lump in his throat. “I’m sorry for that too then, Annabeth. She never did like me much, did she?”

“Oh god.” She swayed.

“Hey.” He shot across the elevator and wrapped his arms round her waist to keep her from falling. “Are you OK? It’s getting a little hot in here.” He looked down at her, stupidly pleased that she was letting him hold her. “Hopefully they’ll have us out soon,” he said, hoping no such thing as he took in a deep breath of her hair. The subtle summery scent was completely different from the candy-coated shampoo she used to use, but it still smelled like her, triggering a fluttering sensation in his abdomen. His fingers slid over the cool silk of her blouse, the rise and fall of her breasts giving him a tantalising glimpse of cleavage.

How could he have forgotten how good she always felt in his arms?

She lifted her hand, placed it on his forearm, and he tensed, waiting for her to shove him away. But instead, her slim fingers fisted on the sleeve of his suit, and she clung onto him as if he might drift away, so tightly that he could feel her digging into the sinew of his arm. Then her eyes lifted to his, the warm grey wet with unshed tears.

“What is it, Annabeth, what’s the matter?”

“Percy, I didn’t…” She swallowed, her voice raw with emotion. “I didn’t have the abortion. I couldn’t go through with it in the end. Any more than you could.”

“I don’t understand?” His voice echoed off the elevator walls and reverberated in his head.

“I had the baby, Percy. Your baby.”

“You didn’t,” he whispered, the words so jagged they scoured his throat. “Your mother… she said…”

She shook her head furiously, the tears rolling down her cheeks and splashing onto her chest. “She lied.”

“You… you had our baby?” So many emotions were racing towards him — joy, shock, awe — he couldn’t catch his breath.

She looked down.

“He’s not a baby anymore, though,” she whispered. “He’s a grown man.”

“How old is he?” he asked, everything inside him too raw, too real, to be able to do the maths.

He had a child. A son. With Annabeth. The child he’d wondered about so often, dreamed about even, but had always believed to be lost long ago.

Was he nineteen? No… twenty. Not a child. A man.

“He’s twenty-one and his name’s Theo… Theodore. And he’s an amazing human being. Although I would say that. I’m his mother.” She gave a soft laugh, like the shy, sweet ones he remembered, and it felt as if he had skipped back in time. And this time taken a different path.

And then everything went dull and ragged and disjointed. The long, sickening roll of grief hitting right underneath the joy, because he hadn’t taken that path. Annabeth and Theo had taken it. Without him.

He’d had a child. For twenty-one years, he’d had a son and he’d never had any idea. And because of a misunderstanding, poor timing, Annabeth’s overprotective mother, and his own cowardice, he’d missed everything.

His child’s first smile. His first step. His first word. He’s never given his son a piggyback ride. Or shown him how to tie his shoelaces, or held his bicycle when he learned to ride, or helped him with his homework — not that he would have been much good at that. But he would have tried…

His hands dropped from her waist and he stepped back.

But that was the point, wasn’t it? He’d never got the chance to try.

He felt sick with longing and regret and a blunt, futile anger — for all the things he’d lost that he could never get back.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Sit down, Percy, before you fall down,” Annabeth whispered as she guided him to the elevator wall, and watched him collapse. She sat next to him and brushed her own tears away. He looked shell-shocked. Even more shell-shocked than she felt.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you straight out like that,” she said, touching his arm, worried he might be falling apart. He looked so fragile.

“I don’t think there’s an easy way to tell someone that.” He gazed at her, his eyes so full of pain her heart wrenched.

She’d spent years exorcising all her memories of him but now they came flooding back. The taste of smoke and need, the first time they’d kissed. The smile in his eyes when he teased her. The feel of him the first time they’d made love. The excitement whenever he appeared after dark, at the fire escape outside of her window. The world of wonders that they had discovered together — just the two of them, two broken pieces that seemed to fit perfectly together. And then the bone-numbing agony when she had left for San Francisco, believing that he had simply abandoned her.

Over the years she’d persuaded herself that those memories didn’t matter, that he wasn’t important to her or to Theo.

To realise now that all that pain and denial had simply been the result of a terrible mistake was too much to contemplate, and almost too much to bear.

He drew his legs up, draping his wrists over his knees. “I’ve missed everything,” he said, the words so forlorn her heart hurt.

She pressed her palm to his cheek, her hand trembling against the hint of stubble. She wanted to say something, to make the pain go away. But what could she say? He _had_ missed so much. And so had Theo.

He blinked and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Do you… do you think I could meet him?”

She nodded. “I could speak to him. Tell him your name, who you…”

“He doesn’t even know my name?” He swore softly. “Didn’t he ever ask about me?” His head dropped back against the mirrored wall, his distress palpable.

Shame engulfed her.

“He did ask when he was little, but I think he knew I found it too painful to talk about and so he stopped.” She threaded her fingers through his, gripping his hand tightly. “I’m so sorry, Percy, I didn’t know you wanted to be…”

“Don’t, Annabeth.” His fingers tightened around hers, and he turned towards her. “Don’t apologise. It’s not your fault. You were just a kid, we both were.” He held onto her, their joined hands swinging lightly.

But the guilt still lingered. At the thought that she’d allowed her own resentment, her own heartache, to rob her son of his father during all the years of his childhood.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got any pictures of him with you?” The tentative words ripped through the fog of recrimination.

“Oh God. Yes, of course.” She scrambled across the elevator on her hands and knees and pulled her iPhone out of her briefcase. Rushing back to sit beside him, she switched on the phone, opened the photo app and flicked to the album of photos she’d uploaded a year ago, the day after Theo had left for college.

“Here.” She flicked to the first set: Theo’s early years. “You can start there and then flick through them. I’ve put all my favourites of him in there.”

As Percy held the phone and scrolled through the photos, they were able to share at least a small part of their son’s childhood together: Theo blowing out the candles on his third birthday cake. The gap-toothed grin on his face on the first day of preschool. His arms draped over his teammates' shoulders when they won their first football game. Holding his new surfboard one beautifully warm New York summer in Montauk. And a fifteen-year-old Theo looking a little too fondly at his first girlfriend.

Percy peppered her with questions, engrossed in every moment, and she answered every one, her heart bursting with pride and love but aching with sadness and regret at the same time — because, despite how much she wanted to, she couldn’t turn the clock back and give Percy more than just the pictures.

At last, they came to the most recent photo: Theo and her leaning against his new Chevy Sonic, the car packed to the roof with his stuff for college.

“He’s handsome, he looks like you,” Percy murmured, his thumb stroking the picture.

Annabeth smiled but enlarged the photo so it was magnified on Theo’s face. “There’s a lot of you in there, too,” she uttered, her voice hoarse as she acknowledged all the things about Theo she had forced herself to deny for so long. “He’s got your eyes, and the shape of your face, and those deadly dimples.” She laughed. “And girls _and guys_ follow him around, just like they used to do with you.”

He took a deep breath in, let it out and then handed her back the phone.

“Wow, this is kind of intense.” He raked his hands through his hair, driving it into furrows. Then he turned and smiled, the deadly dimples winking at her, despite the bittersweet emotion she could see in his eyes. “You did an incredible job, Annabeth.”

The words “without me” seemed to hang in the air, torturing her.

But then he cupped her chin and shifted round. “Thank you,” he whispered, and his lips touched hers.

At first, the kiss was sweet and tender and sincere. She kissed him back, desperately grateful that he didn’t blame her for what he’d lost. But then his tongue touched the seam of her lips and gratitude wasn’t all she felt. Opening her mouth, she let him in. And suddenly, all those long-forgotten memories — the heat, the excitement, the longing — shimmered across her skin.

He drew back, his breathing as ragged as hers as he framed her face in gentle palms. “Please tell me you’re not married.”

She shook her head, her hands covering his on her cheeks. “Not at the moment. Are you?”

“No.” A slow, steady smile spread across his face.

“Do you…” She hesitated. “Do you have any other children?”

The smile widened as he shook his head, pressing one quick kiss to her mouth.

The elevator jolted and began to creak upwards again.

He stood up swiftly and held out his hand. Tugging her to her feet, he settled his hands on her waist. “Listen, Annabeth. I’d really like to see you again, tonight. Would you…” His voice faltered. “Would you like to go out after work?”

She nodded, her nerves thrumming with excitement at the possibilities almost too intense to contemplate. Maybe they couldn’t make the past right… But what if there was a chance to have a future? “Yes, I’d like that. I’ll ring Theo this afternoon. Tell him about…” She sighed, more than a little overwhelmed by the events of the last twenty minutes. How did you cope when your life changed so fundamentally in such a short space of time? “I’m not sure he’s going to believe it.”

“I’m not sure I believe it.” Percy chuckled, the sound incredulous and yet pleased.

“He’s coming back this weekend,” she continued, trying not to read too much into that breath-taking smile. “Maybe if you’re available?” she stumbled to a halt. This was such a massive step. For all three of them. And it wasn’t going to be easy.

“I’m supposed to be flying to London on Friday,” he said. “But let me know if Theo wants to meet up and I’ll cancel.”

“Oh, right, OK.” She nodded around the choking feeling in her throat.

“Hey, Annabeth, don’t cry.” He brushed the moisture from her cheeks with his thumbs. “I won’t put too much pressure on him, I swear.”

“It’s not that,” she stuttered. “I think he’ll be excited and…”

“Then what is it?”

“It just feels so huge, that something I never thought would happen — _could_ happen — is going to happen…” She hiccuped, knowing she wasn’t making a lot of sense. “And when it does, we’ll always have to face the fact that we could have had so much more.”

His hands rubbed her arms and she realised it wasn’t just Percy’s relationship with their son she was talking about.

“I know.” He kissed her lightly, drawing her close. “And I’m sure it’s going to hurt an awful lot.” He stroked an open palm down her cheek. “But right now, I don’t want to think about any of that. I just want to start from here and see what happens.” He pulled back. smoothing his thumbs over her cheeks. “You’ve given me a child, Annabeth. Something I never thought I had. Knowing that and having you in my arms again, makes me feel like anything is possible.”

She gulped down the emotion closing her throat, and smiled into those beautiful emerald eyes as the elevator doors swished open.

“Hi, folks, sorry to keep you waiting so long.”

Annabeth glanced round at the short, grease-covered man standing outside the elevator.

“Don’t be sorry.” She dropped her head back onto Percy’s chest, circling her arms around his waist, and felt his arms wrap tight around her shoulders. “We’re not.”


End file.
